Man charged after infant daughter is found with suspicious injuries

LORAIN — A Lorain man was charged with child endangering after his daughter was found with what police deemed suspicious injuries. Police said the man’s family was investigated last year after the death of another child.

Lorain County Children Services spokeswoman Patti-Jo Burtnett said the agency is looking into the incident after police officers were sent to Mercy Regional Medical Center at 9:15 p.m. Saturday to meet with the family.

Police said the injured child, a 2-month-old girl, appeared to have a severe fracture to her right arm and bruising on the left side of her face. She was flown to Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland for further treatment.

The child’s mother, Saleana Craig, 22, told police she was at work when she received a call from her husband and the father of her child, Corey Craig, 19, who told her their daughter was having trouble moving her arm.

Saleana Craig said she came home to find the girl crying, and when she asked Corey Craig what happened, he said he didn’t know and he could not explain the injury. She said her daughter had no injuries when she dropped her off at her mother’s earlier in the day. According to a police report, the child was returned to Corey Craig around 5 p.m.

Officers followed up with Corey Craig at his home in the 1300 block of Euclid Avenue, and he told police he was playing with his daughter, who had no apparent injuries, when she seemed to have trouble moving her arm. He said when he touched her, she would scream uncontrollably.

According to the report, Corey Craig told officers he and Saleana Craig were investigated after the death of their 3-month old baby boy, who died November 2012 while he was sleeping in his crib. He told police it initially was reported that the child had a fractured pelvis, but the case was dropped due to the “initial improper diagnosis of a fractured pelvis.”

A report on that investigation was not available Monday.

Saleana and Corey Craig have a 3-year-old boy together, which Cuyahoga County Children Services has had custody of since the previous incident, according to Burtnett. Corey Craig told police he had been abused by his mother until the age of 7, when he was taken from her custody.

Police arrested and charged Corey Craig with child endangering because he was with the child “during the only time that these injuries could occur,” police said.

Craig later told an officer at Lorain City Jail that he lied, and he admitted that he tripped over the coffee table and fell with his daughter in his arms, and his daughter fell to the floor, hitting her arm on the floor. He said he lied because he didn’t want to upset his wife.

Saleana Craig declined to comment on the incident when contacted Monday.

Burtnett said LCCS is investigating, but the agency hasn’t taken any action yet, because the case is still in the “assessment phase.”